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Domestic Violence

  • Have you been in an intimate relationship in which you’ve been physically hurt? Are you now?
  • Have you been in a relationship in which you felt you were treated badly?  In what ways?
  • Has your partner ever destroyed things that you cared about?
  • Do you feel afraid of your partner?
  • Has your partner prevented you from leaving the house, seeing friends, getting a job or continuing your education?
  • Does your partner use drugs or alcohol? Is he verbally or physically abusive when drunk or high?
  • Has your partner humiliated you or called you names?
  • Has your partner harmed or threatened to harm someone or something you love?
  • Have you been forced to have sex when you didn’t want it?
  • Have you been forced to participate in sexual practices you didn’t want to do?
  • Do you have guns in your home? Has your partner threatened to use them when he was angry?

Battering is the use of physical, psychological, and sexual force to control and maintain power over another person. It involves frightening, intimidating and humiliating another person repeatedly over time. It often involves the destruction of personal items and pets. Battering is not a series of isolated incidents.  It is a process of deliberate intimidation intended to coerce the victim to do the will of the victimizer.

Types of abusive behavior include:

  1. •physical assaults

  2. •sexual assaults (pressured, coerced or forced sex)

  3. •threats of violence against victim, others or self

  4. •attacks against property or pets and other intimidating acts

  5. •emotional abuse, humiliation, degradation

  6. •isolation of the victim

  7. •use of children against the victim

  8. •economic coercion

Batterers are not all the same. Some are violent inside and outside the home and have a history of antisocial behavior. They can be sadistic and have low empathy. Others are extremely jealous, and the violence is exclusively or predominantly in the intimate relationship. There is often depression, anxiety, and their attachment to their spouse is fearful and angry. According to Donald Dutton in his book, The Abusive Personality: Violence and Control in Intimate Relationships, the “overcontrolled batterer” often has a cheerful persona, tries to avoid conflict, masks his dependency, has an overlap of violence and alcohol use, chronic resentments and is passive aggressive.


Why does a woman stay in an abusive relationship?

  1. •She often has a very real fear that the violence will escalate when she tries to leave. The batterer may threaten to kill her if she leaves. Even without an explicit verbal threat, his actions may indicate that he will do so. Research shows that an increased risk of serious injury and death at the time a battered woman leaves her partner. He may have told her and/or she believes he would harm the children, other family members or pets if she leaves.

  2. •There is a lack of real alternatives for housing, employment and financial assistance.

  3. •She believes her children need an intact family, that they need their father.

  4. •She believes that she could not provide her children with a decent home, clothing and schooling.

  5. •She is immobilized by psychological or physical trauma.

  6. •She has cultural, religious or family values that encourage maintenance of the family unit at all costs.

  7. •She believes the violence is her fault.

  8. •She still loves him. She doesn’t want to end the relationship; she just wants the violence to stop.

  9. •She is ashamed to be in this situation or thinks that no one will believe her or support her. 


Children are victims in domestic violence situations. In about half of domestic violence cases, children are physically abused as well. Even when they are not, witnessing domestic violence can have profound effects upon them.


If you are involved in a domestic violence situation or know someone who is, get help from someone who understands battering. There are phone hotlines, shelters for battered women and their children and programs for batterers.


 

 

Therapy by someone with experience in domestic violence is very important. These are not simply couples with conflict. When there is ongoing violence it is important that the couple not be treated together. There are issues of power and control and it is not safe.


Suffering and Healing: Opportunities for Growth

 

NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE HOTLINE: 800-799-7233



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